Moneygall throws party for Obama 04/11/2008 - 18:25:09The Offaly village of Moneygall - home to Barack Obama’s ancestors - threw a celebration party tonight in a local pub in anticipation of his victory in the US presidential election.

Before last year, the most famous descendant of Moneygall, Co Offaly, was Papillon, the horse that won the Aintree Grand National in 2000.

But after a Church of Ireland vicar uncovered records in the home of an elderly parishioner which tied the political leader to the village, it has been basking in the spotlight.

Canon Stephen Neill, 39, of the 200-year-old Templeharry church, in nearby Cloughjordan, who unearthed the connection, said Senator Obama was now genuinely regarded as a son of Moneygall.

“The villagers have a real concrete link with history in the making and they feel very proud, very privileged and very excited,” he said.

Mr Obama himself acknowledged his Irish roots last St Patrick’s Day when he promised to visit his ancestral home and sip a pint of the stout.

His third great-grandfather Fulmuth Kearney, the son of a wealthy shoemaker, left the village for New York in the 1850s and the rest of his family followed him.

Nothing remains of his homestead and surrounding field, known as Kearney’s Gardens, which was recently divided into housing sites by Offaly County Council.

But blood ties remain, according to Henry Healy, 24, who keeps the accounts for a local plumber and who has traced his own family tree to the Kearney-Obama dynasty.

He organised the village celebrations at Ollie Hayes’ pub.

“The village itself hasn’t seen attention like this ever and probably never will again,” he said.